The past few months have flown by and now Christmas is already done and dusted. I love reading everyone's What I Got Posts as im so nosey! They usually end up making me spend money. I don't get why people find these kinds of posts as "bragging" when they clearly aren't, 90% of bloggers love to read them as we are all beauty addicts!

For me 2016 has been my favourite year for beauty. The amount of products I have fallen in love with and even finding some new holy grails. I have had the chance to try out some incredible products and just like last year I am sharing my top beauty picks of 2016. I love seeing what products people are loving.

This year me and nine other bloggers decided to do a secret Santa. I was so excited and loved buying the gifts and wrapping them. We used an online website where we all put our names and email addresses then you got an email saying who you had. When we received our Secret Santa's we had to guess who had us and then once everyone guessed we could open the cards to see who it was from.

I have found so many new blogs to follow this year but I thought I would narrow it down to my favourite 10 blogs. I love finding out what blogs bloggers are loving, it is a great way to find some new ones to follow. Alot of these girls I talk to often whether its texting or on Twitter. This year has been my favourite in blogging as I have got to speak to some amazing people.

Christmas is such an exciting day although this year im struggling to get into the festive spirit! I remember the good old days when you are a kid circling everything in the Argos catologue that you want. As you get older you seem to get less excited but I will always have our Christmas Day Traditions to look forward to.

Stationary is addictive. Every year I go on the hunt for a planner/diary one I can use for my blog. This year I have found my favourite planner yet! The best thing is it only cost £10! When I picked this planner up I thought it was going to be around £30-£40 not £10... BARGAIN!

When I say a product is a holy grail of mine I really mean it. It isn't often I find cult products I couldn't live without and this year I have found some right gems! I own alot of products especially foundations, I must own around 30 and I love most of them but to call them a holy grail is a big thing. Going through my collection trying to narrow it down to my holy grail products was quite hard but I did it, I narrowed it down to eleven products!

Pinterest has become a slight addiction of mine. I only started using Pinterest around August 2016 so not long ago. I had an account but never used it as I never really understood the point of it but now I am on it daily. Since August my followers have grown and I am now on 16K! I honestly cannot believe I have that many followers in such a short amount of time. I have had so many people ask me what I do so I thought I would share with you all what I do. Now to be honest it isn't anything technical and I don't know why it has made mine grow so quick but I am so thankful.

I get alot of people ask me do I get many views to my blog from Pinterest, in the beginning I didn't. It has only been over the past month or so I have noticed I am getting alot of traffic from Pinterest so it is worth sticking with it. Don't expect instant results as it doesn't work that way.

Be Active | This is an obvious one but I always get asked how many pins should you be pinning. That is up to you. I usually pin a minimum of 20 a day. Some days I don't bother and only do one or two but I try and do at least 20 which is pretty easy on Pinterest.

Eye Catching Boards | I have around 40 boards now but some I don't use. I did an interview on Caitlin's blog Through The Mirror (Check out her blog she has some great blog tip posts) and I explained you don't need lots of boards you can just have 10 boards and focus on those. For beginners I would advise have no more than 10 boards and concentrate on building those before creating new ones. Give them catchy names, some of mine have boring names i.e. Autumn Fashion or Hair Envy but try to make some catchy ones to make your board stand out.

Keep Boards Secret | When I first start a board I make it secret! When you create a board you get the option of keeping it secret or public. I do this because if I didn't someone would click on my board and only see 3 pictures and wouldn't follow. Keep your board secret until you have pinned at least 30 pins. Then you can make it public. It shows people you are active and pin often.

Follow | Be sure to follow other boards. Don't be someone who only pins and doesn't follow anyone. The more people you follow the more images you have to pin. I think I follow around 400.

Be You | I make boards about topics I enjoy, this way I constantly enjoy pinning things related to them. I wouldn't start a board for things I don't personally like as I wouldn't pin things as much compared to the boards I enjoy more.

How To Grow Pinterest For Your Blog

Pinterest is a great way to grow traffic to your blog. It does take time and work, be patient and it will happen.

Images | In the beginning I would just pin the images from my blog post but now when I take my blog photo's I take an extra photo. As you can see my blog photo's are wide but for Pinterest you want them to be long in length and not as wide as Pinterest prefers slim tall images. Below you can see an example from one of my posts and see my blog picture vs my pinterest picture.

Pin Your Post | You can pin images directly from your blog and it will automatically have the link or if like me you take an extra photo and upload it directly to Pinterest copy and paste the blog post link into the Pinterest image.

Group Boards | These aren't something I use that much but I should do. You can search many Pinterest group boards related to what you want. Join them and then pin your blog posts.

Promote | I promote my Pinterest once a day on Twitter. I also ask bloggers for their links so I can follow them. Socialize as you can't really socialize via Pinterest so do it on another platform. Track Your Pinterest StatsGoogle Analytics | Once logged into GA go to Acquisition (left hand side) - Social - Network Referrals - Scroll Down - Click where it says Pinterest in the list and it brings up a list of referrals from Pinterest to your blog.Blog Posts | You can track to see who has pinned posts from your blog or pinned the image by putting:http://pinterest.com/source/yourwebsite.com/Mine would be:http://pinterest.com/source/emmywritesabout.com/Check out my Pinterest EmmyWritesAbout

That is everything I do on Pinterest, nothing special but just little things that can help grow your Pinterest. Have you seen my other blog tips posts? I recently did a Bloggers Guide To Twitter.

New York is one of the places I have always wanted to go and being able to go a few weeks ago was just incredible. I had reconstruction surgery last year which I am still recovering from so I couldn't do everything I wanted to in New York but I enjoyed it non the less and will go again once I am better. Going to New York you walk miles and I mean 10 plus miles a day! The subway is your friend. I have done a couple of haul posts (links will be at the end of this post) and I also have a Giveaway including an Anastasia Beverly Hills Liquid Lipstick!

This has to be one of my favourite packages I have received since blogging. I had a huge Santa's sack arrive on my doorstep and I couldn't believe how big it was. The sack was personalised with my name which made it even more special then when I opened it I saw all the goodies inside. There is nothing better than receiving surprise gifts.

Contouring is my favourite part of my makeup routine. Some days I have a natural subtle contour and other days I go full throttle and contour those cheekbones like no tomorrow. I have tried many contour kits and find there isn't many good affordable ones. Alot of the shades in cheaper kits are quite orange which don't work on most skin tones. Crown Brush have a new release the 10 Colour Pressed Powder Contour Palette which is affordable and comes with a huge range of shades.

Last week I did my NYC Beauty Haul #1 which included all of the high end makeup I picked up and this week im sharing all the drugstore makeup I got. Any beauty blogger would love to shop in New York, there are so many shops to buy makeup. I do have my NYC Shopping Guide going up in a few weeks which has everywhere I shopped and where they are located.

It is no secret how much I love Vichy products, if you have read my blog for a long time you will have seen many reviews on skincare and makeup from them. I have a huge fan of the original Vichy Dermablend Foundation but I was intrigued by their newest makeup release the Vichy Dermablend 3D Correction Foundation. I am a huge foundation junkie and own around 30 foundations, yes I know it is bad and I dread to think how much money I have spent on them.